Highlights from the Archives

Swing sounds are becoming the music of choice in an increasing number of campaigns for mainstream advertisers. Television and radio commercials are reverberating with the voices of such vintage vocalists as Louis Prima, Tony Bennett, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, as well as contemporary bands that reinterpret the swing music of the 1930's and 1940's. Among them: the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Royal Crown Revue and Squirrel Nut Zippers.

How far have the Super Bowl halftime shows come? Befitting the National Football League's desire to book stars, tonight's show on Fox will star Gloria Estefan, Stevie Wonder, the swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and 750 dancers.

Swing music and dancing seem to be everywhere these days. Scotty Morris, founder and lead singer of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and his counterparts in Cherry Poppin' Daddies and the Brian Setzer Orchestra, who labored mostly in obscurity until this year, say artistry and musicianship are the keys to swing. But many of those caught up in the movement would argue that dancing is what counts.

The neo-swing movement dates back to the late 1980's. It began in California, of course, where the soil for youth movements is well seeded. Back then, the retro-culture hounds in San Francisco were waiting with martinis at the ready to receive the Los Angeles band Royal Crown Revue, which was playing 40's jump-blues inspired by Louis Jordan. By the mid-90's this so-called swing became a viable life-style package, a social music with less violence and drug abuse than punk and therefore more staying power.

December 30, 2007, Sunday

DOES anyone remember the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl? It was 1964 and no one could hear a note they played, least of all the band members themselves, who stood a few feet from one another, deafened by the roar of outdoor adulation, all 18,000 seats...

WHEN Resorts International opened up the first legal casino here more than two decades ago, president Jack Davis brought in what he figured would be one of the ultimate casino entertainment acts as his first headliners: Steve Lawrence and Eydie...

July 2, 2000, Sunday

A crucial argument revolving around jazz -- and one that hasn't been heard much in decades -- is whether the music needs to be connected to its roots in dance. Roger Pryor Dodge, the dancer and jazz enthusiast, was an eloquent, committed writer on...

May 22, 2000, Monday

Where there is jazz, there are inflated expectations. Jazz is patriotism, American genius, our home-grown cultural aristocracy. People who really love jazz routinely misunderstand the scale of its popularity; they wonder why the pride of American...

June 30, 1999, Wednesday

THE Gap commercials may try to take credit for pushing 1930's and 1940's swing music back into the limelight and the Cherry Poppin' Daddies' ''Zoot Suit Riot'' may be the most recognized musical remake among the new hep cat set. But Brian Setzer is...